30 children die in Gorakhpur's BRD hospital in 48 hours

Gorakhpur: At least 30 children have died within 48 hours at Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College Hospital.

"15 infant were younger than one month. Six of the remaining 15, who were older than a month, passed away due to encephalitis. Others died due to various other reasons," Professor Dr DK Srivastava, Head of the department of Community Medicine Srivastava told ANI.

The BRD Medical College hit the headlines earlier in August this year when 63 children, including infants, died within a span of one week due to disruption of oxygen supply by the vendor. 

The FIR was lodged against nine people, including the owner of the oxygen supplying company and the principal of BRD Medical College.

JE and AES have claimed thousands of lives in eastern UP over past few years:

Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and Japanese Encephalitis (JE) have been creating havoc in eastern UP for years.

The most severely affected districts are Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Basti, Siddharthanagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Deoria and Mau.

As per the data on the website of the Directorate of National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), in 2010, UP reported 3540 cases of AES, which claimed 494 lives. JE saw 325 cases being reported in that year, and 59 lives were lost.

Similarly in 2011, 579 deaths in 3492 cases of AES were reported, while JE claimed 27 lives out of 224 cases.

In 2012, 3484 cases of AES were reported and 557 patients died, while 139 cases of JE and 23 deaths were also reported.

The AES death toll breached the 600 mark for the first time in 2013. 609 out of 3096 cases reported resulted in deaths. JE deaths too crossed the 40-figure-mark in the same year with 47 deaths reported in 281 cases.

In 2014, out of the 3329 AES cases reported, there were deaths, while for JE it was 34 deaths out of 191 cases.

In 2015, as many as 479 lives were lost due to AES of which 2894 cases were reported. JE claimed 42 lives from the 351 reported cases, according to the official data.

In 2016, 3919 cases of AES were reported in which 621 lives were lost. The death toll due to JE stood at an all time high of 73 out of 410 cases reported.